Students and police clash as France struggles to quell school protests

Riot police clashed with high school students in cities across France on Friday, as President Emmanuel Macron’s government battled to contain increasingly violent protests over classroom conditions and funding.

Tear gas clouded the streets in the eastern city of Strasbourg, fireworks were aimed at police lines in Marseille in the south and rubbish bins set ablaze in Rennes in the west. In Paris, where there were also skirmishes, students waved placards reading “We have a future to build, not to endure”.

Six months before next year’s presidential election, opinion polls consistently show the deep unpopularity of Macron and his centre-right-leaning government. Planned budget cuts, which exacerbate the funding crisis in education, have fuelled the discontent.

Minister says parents should pay reparations

The protests erupted in the Paris region last week but have turned increasingly violent as they spread nationwide.

Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin told RTL radio that police had arrested 2,000 people, most of them teenagers, since the protests began. He said that parents of those inflicting damage to property should be made to pay reparations.

400 high schools — roughly one in 10 — were closed on Friday due to the unrest and Education Minister Edouard Geffray urged parents to dissuade their children from protesting in the streets. “In the streets, the children are in danger,” Geffray told BFM TV.

Read: French high school blockades continue as protests spread to universities

Several students in the Paris region whom Reuters spoke to outside high schools earlier in the week said they were staying away from the protests on Friday due to the escalating violence.

Darmanin said the student protest movement had been hijacked by “outsiders”.

Education to get below-inflation budget increase

Students blockading their high schools have voiced anger over overcrowding in classrooms, regular shortages of teachers and dilapidated buildings, blaming years of underinvestment.

“We are 35 per class, we don’t have enough chairs in classrooms, the one hour lunch break (is too short) for everyone to get food,” 15-year-old Kesia told Reuters in the Paris suburb of Pantin before running off as the police used tear gas.

Read More: India’s Cockroach Janta Party, student groups to protest, demand poll chief’s resignation

Under the draft 2027 budget presented by the government on Thursday, the education budget is set to increase by a below-inflation 1.7% to €65.53 billion, excluding teacher pensions.

Education is traditionally the largest budget item, but that changes next year with debt servicing costs expected to reach €74.5 billion, according to the draft bill.

Hard-left LFI denies stoking protests

Intelligence agencies told a crisis meeting on Thursday that the protest movement had been initiated by politicians from the hard-left France Unbowed party (LFI). Senior LFI lawmakers rebutted the allegations and accused the government of politicising the protests ahead of the election to replace Macron.

Students and rights groups have accused the police of using heavy-handed tactics against minors, including the use of batons, tear gas and non-lethal flash-ball guns.

Amnesty International cautioned against the excessive use of police force. “Students must be protected, not beaten with batons,” the advocacy group said on social media platform X.

The interior ministry on Friday said that they had opened three investigations into police violence against protesters.

In a sign the protests may spread beyond French borders, some high school students in the city of Liège, in Belgium, began protesting on Thursday. A city hall spokesperson said high schools were closed on Friday.